I Just Need To Find Someone
by cym70
Summary: There's a solace in knowing she's not the only one who missed out on thousands of years of life. (Spinel and Pink Pearl)


Pink—and she _is_ Pink, she was always Pink's—didn't yet know what she was meant to do with her life. She knew that Steven, the gem who rescued her, the gem who wasn't Pink Diamond, wanted her to be happy. He wanted her to heal on Earth or on Homeworld or wherever she thought was best. But she couldn't decide.

Being on Homeworld these days was fine. Lots of things had changed and were changing though, and it was stressful to figure out where she fit in there. At first, she tried to go back to being friends with Blue Pearl and Yellow Pearl, but they had changed too. They tried to include her and tried to catch her up, but it wasn't the same.

Being on Homeworld also meant being around the Diamonds, especially since they seemed to be trying to get out amongst the other gems more and more. Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond were fine, but the instant she saw White Diamond, Pink's body froze up like it wanted to force her back into her former position and her gem felt empty and her head hurt and hurt and hurt.

She didn't want to be on Homeworld. Not all the time.

If she went to Earth, to Little Homeworld, they welcomed her. There was such an assortment of gems there, many previously corrupted, and nobody stared at her missing eye or treated her like she was fragile. She liked that.

What she liked less was being around Steven. He might not be Pink Diamond, but he held her gem, and…and Pink needed to distance herself from it. She needed to let that go, grieve for what had been lost and move on. She couldn't do that with him around.

She hadn't found a polite way to say that yet, so she'd left Little Homeworld too. Back to real Homeworld. And then back to Little Homeworld when that became too overwhelming.

Back and forth, back and forth.

* * *

Spinel. _Spinel._

All those years and still the name sprang to mind instantly, made her smile.

Pink saw her from a distance at first, as a small figure in Blue Diamond's hand, and she stared up unable to believe who she was seeing. It was her, right? The same Spinel?

It had to be.

"Spinel!"

Blue Diamond and the gem in her hand both turned to look at her, startled. "Ah, it's you, Pearl. Spinel, you ought to say hello."

"Huh?" A familiar pink head craned over to get a look at their visitor, then quickly pulled back again and said something Pink couldn't quite catch.

"Oh, don't say that, anybody would be pleased to see you!" Blue Diamond smiled. "Anyway, I really must be going. I told you, I've got that meeting over in Facet Three. You know the spot, just straight off the warp pad, you can't miss it. Why don't you meet up with me there whenever you're finished?"

Another thing she didn't catch, but then Blue Diamond's hand lowered down and Spinel did a little forward flip to land in front of Pink. "Uh, hey there. Kinda surprised you remember me."

It was muted, more nervous than she'd ever heard Spinel be before, so Pink nodded quickly. "Of course." They'd had fun together, even if Spinel always focused on entertaining her Diamond, not the Pearl who followed along after her.

She was so different now. Pink had expected an outfit change—or two or three or however many fit into the thousands of years since they'd last seen each other—but Spinel looked almost like a completely different gem on first glance. Her pigtails were different, her eyes… Her _gem?_ And were those cracks on her face, like Pink had? No, they weren't, but still…

Pink must have been staring too much, because Spinel was looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"We playin' spot the difference?"

She smiled and touched the cracks that marred the left side of her face. "If we are, you've won already."

Spinel cracked an uneasy smile at that. "That's all you got around to in six thousand years?"

"Afraid so." _And what about you?_ She wanted to ask, but there was inexplicable fear on Spinel's face, and it gave her pause. "I…I missed you," Pink said carefully.

"You did?" Disbelief resonated in her voice.

She nodded quickly. "Once I was myself again, I mean. I kept hoping I might run into you the past couple years, but I never did."

Spinel narrowed her eyes. "Once you were yourself?"

"Oh! Did you not see me before? I just assumed you knew—I was under White Diamond's control for the past few thousand years, after… Um, anyway, my memory's foggy, so I wasn't sure if we'd run into each other during that time."

"I…wasn't the only one?"

"Sorry?"

But then Spinel was hugging her, arms twining a couple times around her in such a nostalgic and familiar way. "I was in the garden," she blurted out. "This whole time."

Tears welled up in Pink's eye before she was even able to process what had been said completely. "The garden? Pink Diamond's?"

"Yep, that's the one."

"Why?"

"She told me to wait there and I did, like an idiot."

"Spinel…" But there weren't words for this, were there? There was nothing to say to make it better, because she knew exactly how bad it hurt to have so many years stripped away from you. Spinel might have had it even worse, since she was _aware_ the whole time.

She hated Pink Diamond. She loved Pink Diamond. Pink Diamond was gone. Pink Diamond was everywhere. Was there anyone she'd left untouched?

"I'm sorry, Spinel." It wasn't enough, but it was all she could offer, and the other gem seemed to accept that.

"It's not like you had anything to do with it." She let go rather suddenly. "Y'know, I always wondered what happened to you," Spinel muttered, poking at the buns on either side of Pink's head. "She never said, just showed up with a new Pearl. Needed extra cheering up and all, so I took care of that, of course."

"I'd…rather not talk about that part," Pink stammered. "And I'd rather not talk about her."

Spinel's eyes darkened for a moment as her arms drifted back to her sides. "Sure."

"So, um, how did you get here?"

"That's—Steven, basically," she said, her words stilted uncomfortably. "I'd rather not talk about that part."

"Okay." Pink hesitated, then took a tiny step forward and reached for Spinel's hands. "Maybe we could do something fun, instead of talking?"

She expected Spinel to smile at that, but she didn't. Just sort of froze, her hands lax in Pink's, like she didn't know what to do. "I'm not gonna be the same as you remember me, Pearl. If that wasn't obvious from the new look."

"I wasn't asking you to be the same," she replied evenly. "And I'd rather be called 'Pink,' not 'Pearl.' I'm free, and the name I want to be called is Pink. At least for now." For now, until she figured out who she was without her Diamond.

Spinel seemed a little taken aback, but she nodded, pigtails bouncing slightly. "Pink then. Sorry, it's still strange to see all of you running around on your own. But…it's good that you are. Free."

Pink caught the wistful note in her voice and tightened her grip. "We all are."

Spinel squeezed back but didn't answer. "So what did you want to play, Pink?"

"Surprise me."

* * *

"Can we be friends?"

An unusually weighty question, in ways Pink didn't yet understand. "Aren't we friends already?"

"Not friends from before. New friends."

"I thought we were already that too."

"…Thanks, Pink."

* * *

Spinel visited Pink a lot.

Pink didn't mind that, not exactly, but…

No, she did mind. It was exhausting, and she felt like she never had any space except for when Spinel was with the Diamonds. Pink went back and forth between Earth and Homeworld every few months, Spinel went back and forth between Pink and the Diamonds every few _hours_.

And while her personality had changed some over those six thousand years, she was still just as high energy as ever. And Pink…wasn't. She had been once, but she wasn't anymore. She wished Spinel would understand that.

Maybe it was time to go back to Earth for a while.

Having made that decision, she started packing up her possessions, storing everything in her gem for easy transport. She was halfway through the furniture when she heard Spinel knocking.

She sighed and went to open the door. "Hi, Spinel."

"Hi, Pink! Yellow was just telling me about this really cool-sounding place. We should go check it out together, whaddaya say?"

"Oh, um, maybe another day?"

"Huh? Got a headache or somethin'?" She started ushering Pink inside, presumably to tuck her into bed like she usually did.

"No, I'm okay, I just—"

"Where are you going?" Spinel interrupted, her eyes darting wildly around Pink's near-empty home.

"To Earth, for a bit. That's what I was trying to tell you."

"You're going to Earth?" she repeated.

"I live there sometimes. I told you that, remember?"

"But you live _here_ now." Spinel's voice cracked. "You can't just leave."

"I live in both places. I'll still come to visit you, Spinel, or you can visit me."

"Wow, that's a real honor," she said sarcastically. "I have your permission to visit."

"Don't," Pink warned her. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"_This._ You—You make me feel like I have to be here, all the time, and I can't. Nobody can do that."

"Oh, I get it," Spinel laughed bitterly. "You wanna get away from me."

"Yes, sometimes I do!"

It wasn't the response Spinel had expected, she knew that as soon as the words left her tongue. Spinel wanted her to deny it, wanted to push and push until she was sure that Pink wanted her around.

Pink could see her hands clenching into fists, could see the hurt look on her face, but it wasn't scary. Nothing was really scary to Pink anymore. Still, better to speak before this escalated to something Spinel wouldn't be able to take back.

"Sometimes I need space," she tried, her voice softer. "And you're a wonderful friend in a lot of ways, but that isn't one of them. And I know…I know why it's hard for you, but I need you to try to trust me."

"You know? You _know?_ You don't know anything!" Spinel grabbed her by the front of her leotard. "If you knew, you wouldn't try to leave! You probably weren't even going to tell me! You were just gonna disappear and—"

"It's because I know that I have to leave!"

Spinel stared at her, breath coming in quick little gasps.

"You can't heal if we're like this. You can't heal if you think everybody you love is always going to be right there waiting for you all the time. I can't wait all the time, Spinel. And I can't drop everything when you show up, no matter how much fun it is to be with you. I need time alone to heal, and…and I don't know for certain, but I think you do too."

"But we're friends," she said desperately.

"We are. But it's not the kind of 'friend' that she made you to be. I don't want it to be that kind of friendship. I'd like it to be real."

Tears spilled down Spinel's cheeks as she released Pink and crumpled down to the ground. "I don't know how to make it real. I thought it _was_ real, I thought _this_ was real already."

"It is." Pink knelt in front of her, laying a hand gently on her cheek. "It's real because we have to learn how to do it right."

"B-But how can I learn if you leave?"

"Spinel, I'm not really leaving. It'll take all of two minutes to come see me if you want to or need to. Or if I want to see you." She swept her thumb down one of the dark lines on Spinel's face. "And I do. Just not every single second you're free."

"…Every other second?" she joked weakly.

"Maybe every third."

Spinel sniffled, nodding. "Not every day?"

"It can be every day at first. Not _all_ day though."

"Okay. I-I can try it."

"Thank you." Pink wanted to reach out and hold her, but she couldn't, not right now. "And I _was_ going to tell you, for the record. I just wanted to get my packing done first."

Spinel nodded. "I'm gonna try to believe you."

And even if it hurt to hear, she knew that was the best Spinel could do right now. That was okay. She had a long time to figure it out, and Pink had a long time to figure herself out. Still, sometimes she ached for things to move faster.

* * *

"So…how's Earth?"

"Earthy."

"Is that a _joke?_" Spinel was smiling.

"Was it a good one?"

"Low effort, but cute."

"I'll remember not to do it again then."

"Aww, come on! It wasn't bad!"

"I don't mind being bad, but I'd rather not be cute."

She said it lightly, but Spinel took it in with a serious expression. "Okay. We'll be not cute together then."

Pink flicked her on the forehead. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Being careful around me. Stop it."

"I was trying to be a better friend!"

"Well, don't. At least not like that."

"Then like what?"

"Just like _you_. Be spontaneous and impulsive, like you always are. I like that about you."

"That's usually what gets me into trouble."

"Good." Pink smiled. "Let's get ourselves into trouble."

* * *

Spinel was healing. Pink could see it happening, ever so slowly. It showed in the way she talked about herself, in the way she talked about her new family, in the way she talked about Pink Diamond if she ever chose to.

She often went two or three days now without feeling like she needed to visit Pink and make sure they were still friends. Pink was proud of her, because she knew it had been hard work for Spinel to trust anyone like this.

They made mistakes still. Spinel would say too much, Pink wouldn't say enough, and they'd both end up hurt. But it happened less now.

Both of them refused to let things fester. They would walk away from each other sometimes, yes, but never for more than an hour. Time made things ache more, and they both knew it.

"I'm sorry." It was Pink's turn to apologize today. She'd been too harsh earlier—on edge from seeing Spinel with White Diamond.

Spinel didn't answer her, but she gave her a shaky smile and waited for whatever Pink wanted to say.

"I…I shouldn't have said what I did. It's just hard to see her with someone I care about."

She nodded.

"I know she's trying to change."

"She is."

"I know."

"But some things can't get fixed?" Spinel whispered.

"Some things." Pink closed her eye. "Does that make me awful? That I can't forgive her?"

"No." And Spinel was confident about that. "It doesn't."

Pink felt a hand tug gently at each of her buns, unraveling them until her hair lay warm around her shoulders.

"You don't have to forgive her. It's okay."

"Even if she's your family?"

"Even then."

"Spinel—"

"_Even then._"

Pink let out a small, ragged sigh. "I need to move again. Back to Earth."

"Okay."

* * *

"You could have two homes, y'know."

"…I already do."

"But like, without moving all your stuff every time. It'd be easier."

"No."

Pink didn't want _easy._

* * *

Spinel never asked her about the ephemeral time in which she stopped being Pink Diamond's Pearl and started being White Diamond's.

Nobody else did either, actually.

Pink liked it that way, usually, but other times…other times it ate at her from the inside, made her gem feel brittle and hollow. Was it better to remember or forget? Or neither?

One day, Pink took up a pen and she wrote and she wrote and she wrote until her fingers ached. Everything. Every piece of her. Every piece she remembered.

Some things would always be foggy and dark in her head, caught in the cracks.

When she was done, she took the notebook she'd written it in and gave it to Spinel.

"What's this?" Spinel was smiling, twisting the notebook this way and that without opening it, like she was looking for some secret clue.

"Just read it."

Pink's firm, serious request startled her, but she recovered quickly. "Sure thing. With you or somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else."

"You got it. I'll come by after?"

Pink nodded, her eye still fixated on the notebook.

"Okay." Spinel stretched an arm out hesitantly, then poked gently at her cheek with a corner of the notebook. "You know where to find me."

"Thanks."

When Spinel came back, a full two hours later, and wrapped her up in a painfully tight hug, Pink clung to the notebook wedged between them and let long-awaited tears drip into Spinel's pigtails. Someone knew now. She'd found someone to tell, someone who was well-acquainted with pain herself, and so she understood.

They didn't talk. Pink didn't try to reread any of the words she'd scribbled down. Spinel didn't let go.

* * *

"Want to help me pack today?"

"What, moving _again?_" Spinel teased.

"It's been a while."

"It's been two weeks, Pink."

"Well, it feels like a while."

"You've got some weirdo time distortion goin' on, you know."

"What's this? You don't want me back on Homeworld? Times really have changed…"

"Of course I want you back! You're just confusing, that's all."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

* * *

It was a long time before Spinel asked her, but she did. On paper, the same way Pink had bared her gem to Spinel.

_I want to go back to the garden. For closure. Will you please come with me?_

Endearingly messy handwriting closed with a signature, like Pink could somehow have mistaken this as being from anyone else. She added a little diamond shape to her name like a period these days, and Pink would always have complicated feelings about the Diamonds but she was glad Spinel had family.

She looked up to see an anxious Spinel fidgeting in front of her, and there was no need to think about her answer. "Of course."

And when Spinel needed coaxing off the warp pad, Pink would give her a little push. When Spinel grew quiet, Pink would stand beside her and wait until she was ready to speak and say her goodbyes. When Spinel froze in place involuntarily as they began to walk back, Pink would circle in front of her and place a careful hand over the upside-down heart in her chest and stay there for as long as she needed.

She was not leaving, _they_ were leaving. Spinel didn't belong here anymore.

* * *

"Thanks for coming with me, Pink."

"You already said that."

"Yep, five times so far."

"And here I was being polite by not mentioning the exact number."

"Thank you."

"Six."

Spinel grinned. "That's more like it."

"By the way…"

"Hmm?"

"I think it might be time for me to stop being 'Pink.'"

"That might be difficult."

Pink gave her a not-quite-gentle smack on the shoulder, breaking the half-successful deadpan expression on Spinel's face into a laugh.

"Just kidding. I know you were pretty successful at not being pink for a while there."

"Spin_el!_" she gasped, giggling.

"Okay, okay, I'm stopping. What do you want me to call you then?"

"I'm not telling you now," she answered with a smirk, lifting her chin.

"That's not fair! What is it?"

"Not telling."

"Piiiink!"

"You'll have to wait and see."


End file.
